Week 6: Brazilian - Pão de Queijo

I was so excited when I saw that this week was Brazilian. My wife and I took an awesome vacation to Brazil with my in-laws two years ago. We spent 17 days touring the country. We had nine different flights, so when I say touring the country, I mean really touring. My mother-in-law was in the Peace Corps in Brazil so we got to meet and stay with friends of hers from those days. Also we made friends of our own out long time family friends of my mother-in-laws family.

From the beaches of Copacabana, to the falls of Iguasu, to Tirradentes in Minas Gerais, the people of Brazil are wonderful, friendly, and welcoming. And the food is amazing! We have been meaning to make Pão de Queijo since we got back and this was a perfect opportunity.

Pão de Queijo are basically cheese puffs, made with manioc flour and cheese from the Minas Gerais region. They are everywhere in Brazil. And everyone has a different family recipe. They come in different sizes with differing amounts of cheese. We even had some that were the size of a baby's head with cheese that streched out when we pulled them apart.

It is really difficult to find Brazilian food products in Cincinnati. We went to Jungle Jims, the local foodies paradise, to try and get supplies, and even they fell short. If we can't get it there, then it just ain't available. They didn't have the Mineran cheese so we made do with Queso Fresco and a little Asiago.

Bringing it together.

Adding in the cheese

Let the dough rest a bit

Roll them out. The dough was really sticky, so I oiled my hands up to do this.

Turned out perfect.  Just like we remembered!

 One of out friends is from Florianopolis, and his mother is in the country visiting. Last weekend, she made feijoada, and they had us over for a party. There was so much food, that they sent some home with us. Made for a perfect coincidence! We made some couve for a side. I realized after it was gone that we had forgotten the farofa though! A glass of ice cold beer (couldn't find any Brahma or Antartica, so Pacifica had to do), and I do mean ice cold, made for a great Sunday night meal.

If any Brazilian mother saw how little food was on my plate, I certainly wouldn't have been allowed to get up from the table!

RECIPE:

My father-in-law has been fiddling with this recipe since we got back, trying to get it just right. He did a great job! We had to make a few changes due to unavailable ingredients. We went with 250 gr of sweet manioc flour and 250 gr of sweet manioc starch. This change meant that we had to add in a bit of water while kneading the dough. I also added in about a tsp of baking powder in the flour. I used 50 gr of asiago and 250 gr of queso fresco. We dd our kneading in our stand mixer with a dough hook.

PAO DE QUEIJO (AKA BRAZILIAN CHEESE PUFFS)

Servings: 35-40 puffs depending on size

Ingredients

120 gr sweet manioc flour (Farinha de Mandioca – flour or polvilho is more coarse than starch)
130 gr sweet manioc starch (Bob’s Red Mill tapioca flour aka tapioca starch)

250 gr sour manioc starch (Yoki’s sour starch Almidon Agrio Amedo Azedo)

Total of 500gr starch mixed

125 gr Queso Fresco  crumbled                                         125 gr cows milk feta crumbled

125 gr Piave Vecchio/Parmesan coarsely shredded   or    125 gr gouda coarsely shredded

Total of 250 gr cheese, keep each cheese separate

250 ml 1% milk, for scalding  (you could use whole milk)

1 ½ tbs butter

1/2 tsp salt (more or less, depending, on the saltiness of the cheese mixture you are going to use)

3 small eggs slighty beaten

A little additional milk or warm water

Preparation

1. Put tapioca starch/flour into a large bowl and mix.

2. Combine butter, salt and milk in a sauce pan. Heat and stir constantly to boiling point  (watch closely - when the mixture starts to rise, remove immediately from heat).

3. Pour mixture all over the tapioca flour, and start stirring the mixture using a wooden spoon and as soon as the mixture is cool enough (but still very warm) rub the starch together with the milk with fingertips until mixture resembles course meal.

4. Add beaten eggs in 1/3, not all at once. Knead until it is very sticky and elastic, about 15 minutes, add a little milk or warm water if necessary (You will need a spoon or scraper to get it off your hands).

5. Add first crumbled cheese to mixture

6. Mix until smooth

7. Last add coarsely shredded cheese to mixture (If the dough is sticky, it raises more – the dryer the dough the less it rises. Sueli added a small amount of warm water if she felt the dough was not moist enough and also tasted the raw dough to see if it had enough salt.

8. Let the dough rest while you preheat the oven to 400^oF (it is very important that the oven is at high temperature when you bake the pães-de-queijo; if they start to get too brown on the bottom before getting golden brown on top, reduce the temperature a little bit).

9. Prepare two large baking pans. Oil your hands with vegetable oil and form golf-sized balls with the dough (1 in.). Place them 1-2 in. apart in the pan, as they grow considerably when baked. (You can, at this point, freeze the balls and then store them in zip lock bags to bake them straight from the freezer at your convenience - they will take a little longer to get ready, though.)

10. Bake until golden brown, usually about 28-30 minutes. Serve hot.

Cooked puffs can be frozen, and then warmed up on a low setting in an oven.